Reflective Designing for Actors and Avatars in Virtual Worlds

Abstract

This chapter proposes a designing strategy referred to as “virtual 3D exploratories”. It is a strategy by which to facilitate knowledge sharing and social innovation, activities important to many postmodern organizations and work groups—be they educational or commercial. The strategy will allow us to build virtual worlds, and universes, aimed at exploration—virtual worlds, where actors interact and communicate with each other by the means of avatars. To substantiate the designing strategy, this chapter calls attention to virtual phenomena such as: avatar-based interaction, communication, and scenarios designed for re?ective practices. Taking a ?rst step, the chapter presents narratives and video-based self-observations from 12 experiential sessions undertaken by the “Virtual 3D Agora-world” SIG as part of the EQUEL EU research project (2002-2004). Based on ?ndings and re?ections from these sessions, the designing strategy of virtual “exploratories” is outlined with reference to the “sense-making” theory (Dervin & Foreman-Wernet, 2003) and summarized in a “designing triangle”.